News

This is just the beginning.

We at Solemn Oath Brewery are proud to announce the release of .003-bbl Legless Portable Handheld Serving Vessels with Manual Single-Use Manways. Cans. Snaggletooth Bandana in cans. In honor of those that helped complete our expansion we’ll be releasing a special edition can that will be available Oath Day, May 14. Snaggletooth Bandana cans will then be released city wide in late May. As always, we thank you for your continued support.

Since batch number one at Solemn Oath we’ve been putting beer into a wood. It’s one thing that we are extremely passionate about and get pumped every time we have the opportunity to share them with you. Our first wood-aged bottle releases a few months ago were an awesome success. Now it’s time for more.

This quarter features two separate releases again in The Old Order III & IIII, including our first-ever bottled blend. And no. We aren’t idiots when it comes to Roman numerals. They’re tallies. Any asshole can use Roman numerals. We’re guessing we’ll just have to figure something out when we surpass thirty.

This is a big year for Solemn Oath; we’re planning on doubling production and maximizing solid hangs and mellow vibes.

Exhibit A: Oath Day Four. If you were a love child of flower children, you remember hanging out with your cousins in Uncle Gary’s sweet basement in the ’70s. If not, this is your lucky day. We’ll keep the beer flowing, lines non-existent, and sweet sounds of funk, soul, proto-punk, outlaw country, and Zeppelin piped into your eardrums. Two sessions, promiscuous approach to doors, coffee beers, barrel-aged beers, and great food. We’ll supply plenty of company if you can’t wrangle any friends to come with you.

It’s been awhile since we spilled ink to dive deep into a beer and how we make it. With the release of Most Important Beverage of the Day this weekend, it’s time.

The base beer is a milk stout brewed with a mellow, sweet, slightly toasty Scottish malt as the base along with English roasted barley, two types of chocolate malt, and dark crystal malt. A high rate of lactose leads to a high finishing gravity, full body, and velvety mouthfeel. Mild additions of Centennial hops provide a foundation of orange flavor within the darker malt-derived complexity. The result is a roasty, chocolatey, nearly smoky base that fully coats the palate and lingers with the distinctive sweetness of chocolate-covered malt balls.

From the brewing of the beer itself, to barrel selection, to aging, to having the square footage where the barrel sits, to potentially blending, a lot goes into a wood-aged beer.

At Solemn Oath we refuse to cut corners in anything that we do and put everything we have into ensuring that the beer that reaches your mouth is both creative and a world class product. Now we enter a new chapter of small release beers. As we’ve said before, SOBs have only been able to drink our wood-aged offerings on draft at either the taproom or craft-focused #oathspots around Chicagoland. This changes over the next few weeks. Here’s the deal.

On the occasional Friday we post moments and happenings from the week in the world of SOB. We hope this gives you insight into what we’re about and a look behind the scenes at our little American craft brewery.

We won’t be selling. We won’t be pushing. We won’t be trying to convince you of anything at all. These are a few moments for you to relax and enjoy some beer. And let this serve as a reminder to us all that at least some of the time, that’s really all a brewery should be.

PHOTO: This has been one of the busiest weeks of our one thousand three-hundred and thirty-one day existence. We’re in the final phase of our expansion and the new brewhouse and tanks have been set in place. Seen here is our new MCF Craft Brewing Systems cold liquor tank, it was the first tank set this week.

PHOTO: Our installation team has been incredible this week. Long days for these dudes and they work their asses off nonstop. Here is out hot liquor tank coming in.

PHOTO: This is our new 30BBL mash tun getting its last bit of fresh air for a while. It is now the heaviest piece of equipment in the building.

PHOTO: The mash tun’s new home across the back wall of our brewery. It was completely customized to fit the preferences of our head brewer Tim Marshall and the beer ops team.

PHOTO: MCF systems feature a unique star bottomed mash tun which allows us to pull wort equally and more efficiently from across the entire mash. With many systems you pull from just one side which may cause you to lose out on perfectly acceptable wort hanging on the other side of the mash that may have a tougher path to get across. More wort, more beer we can make. You got it.

PHOTO: No hoses in this system, everything is hard piped to the specifications of our building. The key piece here is the quality of the design and the manufacturing. We can order a specifically sized brewhouse, with specific custom specs, and they design the entire system through a CAD-like system before fabricating the first piece and it all fits together perfectly on a computer. But, in the real world can we rely on a massive stainless tank being perfectly circular and not oval in any way? Even the finest craftsmanship in the world might be an eighth of an inch off. Do that twice and pipes don’t match up. That’s why you need awesome stainless welder.

PHOTO: Brent from MCF has been welding stainless for a long time. He’s helped build countless breweries and before that it was dairy tanks. He knows whats up. Custom stainless welding on site is one of the most important pieces to this new 30BBL brewhouse functioning the way we need it to.

PHOTO: All this awesome construction? The beer does not care. Production must continue so Thursday we filled twelve or so future barrels of Heavyweight Ticklefight Champion of the World. Always remember to take a little piece of what you’re doing right now and invest in your future and make your pop pop proud.

PHOTO: This is a new beginning for us. This three-vessel steam-fired brewhouse will be the largest we ever will put into this building. After this we get to focus on just making more and more beer for a while. Thank you all for the support and for giving us the chance to continue to grow. Without you we’re nothing. You’re a part of this. This is ours.

The vision of Solemn Oath has always been built around the ideal that every idea should be challenged with a fresh voice. And if that idea continues to fight through, our end result is always stronger. Always better. We’re changing the world, probably.

Since our first batch at Solemn Oath, we’ve been putting beer into wood. It’s something we are dedicated to and we’ve been working hard to develop a program to better share this passion with you SOBs. Each year we’ve brought more variety to the lineup and each year we’ve expanded the capacity of our barrel program. Now we’re ready for the next step.

In the past, SOBs have only been able to drink our wood-aged offerings on draft at either the taproom or craft-focused #oathspots around Chicagoland. We’ll be changing this and bottling our wood-aged beer in very small quantities for the first time.

On September 25, 1066, a battle raged in East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The English army had effectively pushed back the invading Norwegian viking forces, but one lone viking held position on the narrow Stamford Bridge.

History’s lore tells us that he held ground for an hour while killing hundreds, and buying his countrymen time before dying by spear from below. He became known as the Viking of Stamford Bridge.